Irish Oxytocin

Threats | 2

                           ❁ Chapter 2 ❁

My feet trailed the hallways of Roosevelt with a steady slip of delight. The last four periods went by slowly, and I was excited to catch up with the group. Lunch was reserved for weekend plans and arguments that had been bubbling throughout the day. It wasn't often that we could find the group all together at once, so everyone pushed aside plans so we could spend at least a full fifty minutes together during the day.
We never had to worry about weekends. We were always together, or we split off into duos and trios to fulfill things the group never seemed to agree on. All of us hiking? Never. Poetry groups with Aaliyah and Shawn? Leave me out of it.
So, therefore, lunch was our holy grail of quality time to be united like some mixed mashup of punks and poets.

My interactions with Nolan Gallagher caught my curiosity. A million questions stirred in my head all day. Who could he possibly be, and where the hell did he come from?
"Why Roosevelt?" I desperately wanted to ask him. But, I knew if I wanted answers, I had to get them from Jamie.
My mind was nearly infatuated with him. He was like a piece of tape that I couldn't seem to shake off my shoe all day. Since English, he's managed to find himself in two more periods of mine. I have not gotten another word from him, in which I've not attempted to receive. We haven't been within three feet of each other since the end of the first period.
It's not like I could ignore him, anyway. The girls in my school were gossiping harshly, just like in period one. I could hear his name bouncing off of everyone's lips everywhere I walked.
Nolan, Nolan, Nolan.

Today's new rumours consisted of the following, if you were asking:

He's officially soulmate-less. Ryen from my math class supposedly went to confirm for herself. And even without Ryen's confirmation, I already knew that fact myself. His forearm was bare; I noticed this morning. Nolan Gallagher was single, and that only made matters worse for the gossipers of our senior class.

Xavier from Ella's chemistry class swears he's a part of some sort of Scottish mafia. Ella had posted it to her Snapchat story as Xavier went on and on about his tattoos. He swears some of the symbols are associated with gang relations, but what would he know? This is the same Xavier Riddleston who tried convincing everyone that our freshman-year history teacher was actually a vampire from the sixteen-hundreds. He still tried to sell us on it until eleventh grade.

Finally, and my personal favourite, was the rumour that Nolan Gallagher was actually an undercover FBI agent sent to see what secrets Ms. Cahera left in that matted hair nest of hers. That was one actually funny. Something told me that we could blame Chase for that one.

Rumours aside, I don't think anyone actually knows anything genuine about him. And, if anyone does, it'll be Jamie.

Lunch eventually came around, and I walked to the cafeteria after a pit stop at my locker. I had a very slow art class with my brother and Chase before this, and I told them to meet me in the cafeteria. I felt like my head was going to collapse on its axis the more they spoke about football. 
I grabbed an apple at the lineup instead of a tray since a certain shake in everyone's reality stripped my appetite away from me. Instead, I approached our lunch table where everyone was already seated. That's when I saw it. It was him, with my friends.

I sat next to Aaliyah at the table as everyone continued their conversation. She gave me a nod of acknowledgment as we both tried to keep up with the conversation.
As with most of our lunches, we had pushed two tables together to make room for everyone. Across from me, which is usually where you'd find me sitting, was Loch himself.
I watched as he glanced at me as I peeled the sticker from my apple. He fell into another small smirk before taking the toothpick from his sandwich and placing it in between the cracks of his perfect teeth. Unfortunate timing, I thought to myself.